Brazil continued and unabridged (for mom and anna)

It seems as though everyone would like a more detailed account of what I’ve been doing in the countries rather than just my supposed philosophical musings. So, before I begin…let me just say that I would appreciate an e-mail from Josephine since I have yet to receive one and allegedly Rob just had a man talk with my beloved father. I can be reached at jrjacobs@bucknell.edu. Also, sorry I haven’t written back to you Pearl or Nicole. I miss Zeb very much and I often think about how much fun I had with you both over my very long and extended winter break. I have no idea who Carlos is. Anyone on blogspot can read my blog so he’s probably some random person who has been moved by my profound words. Nicole- I hope you are having a blast in Argentina, a lot of the travelers we’ve met highly recommend it and I definitely plan on going there soon. Kyle and Bella- I miss you guys so much. I talk about you every single day to my friends and I have pictures of you hanging in my cabin. Mommy has told me how much fun you’re having with the Wii. I can’t wait to play it with you guys when I get home. But don’t forget to keep drawing and reading. It’s very important. And I’m sure you’re both wondering how I’ve been doing in the present department. All I can say is that you little munchkins will be VERY pleased with what I’ve gotten for you so far. I’ll keep an eye out for a panda and a sitar though. Jessica/Jenn- are you alive? Where are you? I miss you. Okay, so here I go with the Brazil itinerary. What I can say is that the blog entries thus far have been very meaningful to me because I wrote them right after port and they truly represent what I felt and the experience that I had. This is a more generic recount.

*Brazil: Saturday, February 17 through Wednesday, February 21

Day 1- When we arrived in port, I was stunned to see that our boat was docked right next to the favelas. What I soon learned on the city orientation tour was that the favelas are everywhere. Nowhere else in the world can you see poverty exposed the way you can in Brazil. It’s everywhere. When we first arrived, we immediately jumped into a taxi and sped through the streets listening to some very loud music. Our driver dropped us off at Sao Fraciso which is a beautiful old Catholic Church. That was the first and last cab we took the whole time in Brazil (except for one very late night). We then walked around Bahia and took in the sights before heading back to the ship. That night, we went to a high energy Carnaval event called Trio Electrico with Jammil. Jammil is basically the most popular band in Brazil so when we reached the block, we were greeted by about 5,000 other partiers all wearing the same orange t-shirts that we were given. I wasn’t able to get any pictures because you can’t bring anything out with you or you’ll get robbed. But what I can say is that you wouldn’t be able to truly picture it unless you were there. It’s a fact that I literally attended the biggest party in the world. It was absolutely insane. We danced behind the moving truck (on the bloco) on which the band played and huge speakers pumped out loud Brazilian pop music for about five hours. The band never stopped playing, not even once and you could tell that their fans were so loyal. We met kids who traveled from all over Brazil to see them. When we finally reached the end of the parade at around 2:30am, we were all covered in beer, exhausted and elated. We ate some mystery food off the street and sprawled out on the sidewalk waiting for our group to gather so we could get back to the bus. Once on the bus, Katie said that I immediately fell asleep. I got back to my room, showered and went to bed. When I found my sneakers in the morning, all of the memories of the night before came rushing back. Exhausted but infected with Carnaval fever, we set out for our first real day in Brazil. Sadly though, as we partied our way down the block, I couldn't help but feel pain for the children weaving their way through the dense crowd in search of empty cans. There were times when I thought they would be crushed and I tried to help them retrieve the cans. That's the thing about Brazil, behind all the fun is the reality of life there. As we fought our way through the crowd to get closer to the music, the children were fighting for their lives.

Day 2- We walked all around Bahia and enjoyed the marketplaces. What’s so amazing about Brazil during Carnaval is that music is playing all over the place at all times. We would just be walking and suddenly a parade would come through and we would dance for a while. I can’t really remember the exact details of the day but that night we went to traditional carnival. We ended up leaving the group because it was really boring. We were wandering around listening to the music when we met a group of kids selling really beautiful jewelry that they made out of all kinds of natural materials. I started talking to Lizzie who is actually from New Jersey. She has been traveling around Central and South America for the past seven months. She started out working on a farm in Peru where she met Salvo, a guy from Colombia. They started traveling together and have been doing so ever since. This other kid performed a good luck voodoo ritual on us. At first I was really confused and a little freaked out but then he gave us these beautiful rings carved from a coconut and bought us beers. There was also Eduardo who took a liking to my friend Cristal. He’s the one bicycling around Brazil. He’s originally from Sao Paulo, a gorgeous beach town below Salvador. After some dancing and bongo drumming we all headed to a local reggae club. Another amazing thing about Brazil is that having fun is so cheap. There was no cover charge and huge beers were the equivalent of one American dollar. We danced all night and then headed outside for some air. We sat on the sidewalk and talked about Lizzie and Salvo’s travels and about life in general. It was all very moving. That’s when they painted our arms with the dye from the Amazon. All told, it was one of the best nights of my life.

Day 3- Although we didn’t think we partied that hard the night before, waking up at 7:30am for a 15 kilometer bike ride through Pituaco Park was extremely rough. I guess that native Brazilian wine was a little trickier than it came off to be. Anyway, Katie and I both slept late and almost missed the trip but I woke up and threw on some sneakers and ran down the hall to get her. We sprinted up to the union to meet with the group and much to our relief, we made it. On the bus I thought I might die from dehydration and too much Skol (Brazilian beer) but Katie gave me a Cliff bar and some water so I could at least hobble over to my bike and get on. Surprisingly, once the ride got started, I felt a million times better. I was sweating profusely which was good because I was getting all the impurities out of my body. The park was beautiful and we even saw a group of really cute little monkeys swinging through the trees. Cristal knew their exact name but it’s really long and confusing and I can’t remember it. Anyway, when we got back from the bike ride, we jumped in the pool, got a little sun and headed back into town. I decided to stay in that night because I was running on about 4 hours of sleep. I watched Zoolander with Emily (my hilarious friend who is a public health addict- her hero is Paul Farmer, the man who opened an aids clinic in Haiti), my roommate Beth and her boyfriend Tristan. Refreshed and ready for some more fun, I woke up the next day and we all went back into town.

Day 4- We went to the market for a little while because we made friends with this nice woman who braids hair as well as her children. It’s astounding how eager children are to communicate with you even when neither of you know anything about the other’s language. They take the time to look at you, decipher your gestures and genuinely want to understand. We brought them some presents and sodas. Again, I can’t really remember the details of the day but we bumped into Lizzie and Salvo again. They were heading down to Sao Paulo and then to Argentina. Lizzie gave me her e-mail so I hope we will be in touch in the future. I have a feeling we will be because I felt like I knew her after meeting her only twice. Once we got back to the ship, we decided we needed to have a real Brazilian eating experience. We went to a really fancy Brazilian steak house called Boi Preto. It’s probably the most expensive place you can eat in Bahia and it cost us about $45 (American) each. We all ate meat for the first time on the trip. It was Katie’s first time eating meat in almost 2 years. It’s basically all you can eat and we all thought we were going to vomit by the time we left because the whole week we were living on fruit from the market so the food was like a shock to our stomachs. I don’t think we will be eating anymore meat for the rest of the voyage. It was quite the experience but I can’t say I would ever do it again. What was great about it though was that we went with the ship doctor, his family and a bunch of other members of the faculty. I sat next to one man who opened an orphanage in Cambodiaafter he and his wife adopted their daughter there (he basically offered me a volunteer position there by the end of dinner) and Rocky Rhoedder (my sustainable communities professor), his wife and their 8 month old son Ryder. Ryder is perhaps the most gorgeous and hilarious baby in the whole world (aside from Zeb of course). As we sat and feasted, I looked around the restaurant and noticed the wealthy Brazilian teenagers having a nice meal after some Carnaval festivities. Again, I couldn't help but think how ludacris the whole situation was. The money that I spent on my meal could have fed a single mother and her four children for two weeks. Instead, women are forced to give their children cookies and soda as these cheap snacks are all they can afford. Race and class in Brazil are HUGE issues. The poor are mainly black and the rich can't be bothered with the poor. I was told that wealthy teenagers actually drop their McDonald's frech fries out of their car windows solely so the street children will come running and eat their food off the ground...giving them a good laugh. How disgusting this world is. Whatever happened to compassion? Katie and I decided that it would be a good idea to go out after we got back from the restaurant because we needed to walk around so we could stop feeling so sick and spend some time thinking about things. Tristan came with us and after we took a wrong turn, got lost in a really scary part of Bahia and eventually found our way back to the fun/happy side of town so we went back to the reggae club. Not only was the music free again, it was so amazingly good. The band was perched on a huge platform built on the top of this wall so everyone danced below. There were older people, men, women, white and black people, children, security, travelers and all other sorts of people hanging out in harmony. It was really beautiful to look around and see everyone dancing. It was total acceptance. Everyone danced with everyone and it was so much fun. We went home later and went right to sleep. Travelers’ exhaustion was starting to hit us hard.

Last day- As you can imagine, we were totally worn to shreds by the last day. Knowing that our legs could handle very little, we walked around and enjoyed the feel of Brazil for one last time. It was a very sad thing to watch the street cleaners remove the last remnants of Carnaval. As the decorations came down and the music became fainter, we accepted that it was over and went back to the ship where we proceeded to lay out on the deck and swim until the sun went down. In the end, Brazil was a crazy whirlwind that I don’t think any of us will ever forget.

What I gained from all of this:

This life is bigger than just us or you or me. It's about humanity. We have to recognize that we are all here to help eachother survive. Money doesn't buy happiness. Not in Brazil and not in the United States. Some of the most content people I have encountered on my voyage thus far have been the poorest. What does that say about the teenage girl in Princeton crying that her father won't buy her the new BMW? It's about perspective. We all need to get some.

***Think globally, act locally***

VEGETARIANISM=SUSTAINABILITY

SUSTAINABILITY=THE END OF WORLD HUNGER

THE END OF WORLD HUNGER=POSTITIVE PEACE

POSITIVE PEACE=HAPPINESS

For those of you who will undoubtedly argue with me about this point here is a summation of the facts:

Cattle ranching results in the destruction (or desertification) of land that could otherwise be used to grow food. Once these eco-systems are destroyed, nothing can grow there ever again. Not only do the cattle claim the land upon which they graze, they consume thousands of pounds of corn and grain (which also need space to grow). The animals consume and require the input of more energy than they could ever produce. It takes pounds and pounds of feed to get just one pound of edible meat. If we properly utilized the feed we haphazardly waste on animals, we could provide for most of Brazil. This is the reality of factory farming. For those who would like to learn more, Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollen is an eye-opening look into the way we Americans eat. He’s also a fascinating writer. That’s all for now (mom and anna, I anticipate that this entry will make you happy, I did it for you). I hope I’ve given you all enough for a little while because I literally can’t afford to write again until after South Africa. Love you. Stay healthy and happy. And don’t forget- THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY!

communication breakdown

JESSICA, JENN, ANNA, STEPH, MEGHAN, TORI:

have you guys been getting my semester at sea postcards?? i've sent a bunch to all of you and i haven't heard back (with the exception of meghan) and i'm getting worried that maybe they're not sending or something. if everyone's just busy that's cool too i just need to know if you've been getting them because if you're not i need to figure out another way to communicate with you. the postcards are free and since internet is 40 cents a minute i've been trying to just use those instead of email. hope everyone is happy and great. love you.

true poverty

the first picture is of the favelas in salvador. 70% of the population live in these usually illegal structures. they often have no sewage, electricity or running water. In Brazil, the richest 20% of society possesses 60% of the wealth while the poorest 20% has only 3% of the country's wealth. so you can only image how poor these people are. the rich take helicopters to work each day and the poor fight to feed their children. the second picture is my arm. the flowers were painted with a natural dye extracted from a plant in the amazon. it lasts about 2 weeks and is very good for your skin.

BRAZILIAN LIFE

It’s all becoming so clear. It’s as though Brazil had the power to rectify by beliefs about society, racism and stereotypes, hidden and exposed inequality, materialism, poverty and the hope for a better future. While I now feel wholly confident in my own ideas, I have also taken a new perspective on my perhaps one-sided way of viewing civilization (that everything is horrible and a big mess and there’s no hope- none of this is true!). It’s a hard thing to put into words- the feeling you get when you start to realize your eyes are open for the first time. I feel like I’m just beginning to live life, or maybe I’m just beginning to understand it. There’s this profound feeling lingering inside of me and with each class I sit through and every page of every textbook I read, I put together the pieces of this crazy jigsaw puzzle we call life. Lewis Mumford once wrote that “Habitually, people treat the realities of personality and association and city as abstractions, while they treat confused pragmatic abstractions such as money, credit, political sovereignty, as if they were concrete realities that had an existence independent of human conventions.” We need balance. Everyone needs money to live, but why do we need so much of it? Everyone innately yearns for power, but why must we drop bombs to attain more of it? I’m starting to not only affirm my beliefs, but also question them as well. How can we find this balance? For the first time in my life, I’m learning because I want to. I read my books because I desperately want to know. While we learn about sustainable development in my sustainable communities class, I find myself connecting this idea of sustainability to society. Has our greed led to the dilution of relationships? One night in Salvador, we met these travelers who were all around 20 to 24 years old and in a matter of several hours, I could already feel my world view morphing into something new. On the outside, these kids sitting on the curb selling the jewelry they made from various natural materials they picked up along the way (mainly seeds and other materials from the Amazon) appeared to be desolate. In actuality, they were the richest people I have ever known. They are doing whatever it takes to travel the world and truly learn the things that are important. Behind their tattered clothes and the rows of earrings and bracelets was Eduardo, a guy my age who had been bicycling around South America for the past few months. And Lizzy, a girl from New Jersey who picked up seven months ago to see the world and has been doing so on her own ever since. This is not to say that hitch hiking around the world is the answer to all of our problems- the point is that we’ve reached this place in society where we must find justification for the direction that we take and the paths that we choose. I believe that people must choose to live the life they want to lead. It all goes back to this question of balance. While I know I need to be educated so that I can get a decent job so that I can support myself, I also need to be aware of what I want out of life. Before I can think about applying to law school, there are many things I need to do to become the person I want to be so that I can live the life I want to lead. There isn’t one way. This idea in the United States that there is only one way has literally led to the demise of humanity as we know it today. Desmond Tutu spoke this morning in my mysticism and the religious experience class. His speech was based off of his article about silence. He said that people now see stomach ulcers as a status symbol. People boast about how long it’s been since they’ve taken a vacation or how jam-packed their daily schedules are. This kind of life is not sustainable. First, there is no happiness in living this way. Second, the human mind and body was not created to SUSTAIN this way of living. We need to get outside and run around and breathe in the fresh air that we are rapidly depleting. I’ve never been so happy because I’ve now finally found hope. I’ve found hope that I can choose the life path that works for me and that not only is what I think important, it is vital to my survival. For the longest time, I never voiced my opinions because I thought they were illegitimate. I thought they were illegitimate because it seemed no one understood what I was trying to say. Then I got on this ship- the MV explorer and I commenced on a journey around the world. It is on this ship that for the first time, I’m living in a community of people who UNDERSTAND. I’ve met professors who put everything they have into maintaining their orphanages in Cambodia and professors who have changed lives through their work in the peace corp. And so I’ve finally been able to realize that I’m not strange, and my beliefs are not unimportant- I simply have never lived in the right environment. I’ve never opened my mind to the possibility that there are other options for my life than settling on the east coast with my husband, dog and two kids. I can live in California if I want to. I can work hard and save money and travel the Amazon. I can become an environmental lawyer. I can do whatever I want because I have the power to choose. Today I realized that what all of this means is- I’M FREE.

maritime adjustments

happy valentines day! today we crossed the equator. i also had to buy more internet minutes. can you believe that just from updating this blog i used up 3 hours worth...thats how slow the internet is. hope everyone is happy and doing well. also, here are some pictures from puerto rico. they include el morro, old san juan and the rain forest. i'm not going to be able to set up webshots until we get to port this weekend and find an internet cafe. we set our clocks ahead last night for the third time. even though we have lots and lots of work and get very little sleep...everyone is happy and having a great time. i really love living on a boat. it allows for plentiful group time but it also offers the chance for some wonderful alone time. today i just laid on the deck and wrote in my journal after classes. it was glorious.. there's a scary storm chasing the boat but it hasn't hit yet. no one is sure if it will but many students are quite excited at the prospect of sleeping in their life jackets tonight. i havent gotten seasick at all yet so this might be my chance. as we pass neptune's throne- they constantly make announcements for us to put on sunblock...there are tons of sunburned kids all over the boat. LOVE YOU

more

i forgot...the voyage between san juan and salvador is supposed to take us over some of the deepest points in the ocean. also, pictures are on the way. i can't give you a full version because it takes about an hour to load 10 pictures and internet minutes are hard to come by. check back for link to webshots. love you all.

PUERTO RICO realizations

Puerto Rico turned out to have an impact on me that I never thought possible. We just got back on the boat- our first port over and done with. Now I’m left here with this strange feeling of change. I thought that going to beaches and rainforests would be fun and exciting (which they undoubtedly were) but these adventures also stirred up the primitive human being inside of me. WE ARE KILLING THE PLANET AND IT’S A REALLY SCARY THING. That’s the message I got from every single tour guide and bus driver that I met over these last three days. When we went to the bioluminescent lagoon in Fajardo I had high expectations. I thought that swimming with electric plankton would be a truly magical experience- and it was! HOWEVER, the tour guide instilled a deep sense of sadness in me. Over the past seven years that he has been guiding people through the mangrove forest to the lagoon, the plankton has significantly died out for the following reasons:

*The run off from storms has increased due to global warming which is a cycle that we have created due to the insane commercialism that has completely consumed our modern society. People want more cars and bigger houses and houses that overlook endangered lagoons and they don’t care if that means wildlife will die and that we are permanently altering our planet and that by 2020 this isn’t going to be a sustainable way of living. We simply MUST stop wanting.

*Because of the runoff from the storms, all of the waste and pollution coming from the construction is contaminating the lagoon and causing irreversible damage. This lagoon is one of FOUR left in the world and soon it will die. Is this really the planet that we want to leave our children?

Don’t get me wrong, I had an amazing time. We kayaked through the mangrove forest for a mile and half before we reached the lagoon. Katie and I had a great time paddling around- we tried to hang back since the other 35 kayaks full of SAS kids were crashing into each other and into the bank. It was completely dark and impossible to see which made it that much more mysterious and fun. Once we got to the lagoon, our guide tied out kayaks together and gave us a crash course on plankton and the way they reproduce and proceeded to send us off into the electric water saying “Go make plankton babies!!” Apparently human stimulation causes them to reproduce. We swam around and even got to look in the water with magnifying goggles. Our skin literally glittered. It was wonderful. We kayaked back and after the hour long ride home we all passed out. Don’t even ask what it took to plan this trip- I was in charge and luckily I can say it was worth the stress. So anyway, today we went on a rain forest (el yunque) hike and to Luquillo beach. It was today that I really started to realize the impact we are having on the planet. Our rain forest guide was AMAZING. She was so knowledgeable not only about the rain forest but about Puerto Rico as well. The hike to coco falls was about 50 minutes. When we got there we got to stop and swim in the waterfalls. The water was so clean and fresh- I felt exhilarated. Then we headed back for the 50 minute hike to our bus whereupon we went to a local restaurant for rice, beans and plantains. On the 45 minute bus ride home, someone asked the tour guide to enlighten us on some of Puerto Rico’s problems since all we knew up until that point were all the good things about the island. Here is an abridged version of what I learned:

*There is a huge problem with immigration that is making a really negative impact on the economy. Illegal immigrants are coming into Puerto Rico so that they can attain American citizenship (since Puerto Ricans are American citizens). This wouldn’t be that big of a deal if it weren’t for the fact that the island is starting to become overpopulated. Right now the mark is at about 4.5 millions humans. With these humans come 2.5 million cars. By the year 2020, they expect the number of cars to reach 4 million. Because of earthquakes and tropical storms, highways can’t be built on top of each other like they are in so many places in the US because they will crumble during one of these natural disasters. So now there is the problem is figuring out where to put all these cars since it already takes 45 minutes to get somewhere that should take 10 minutes. This leads me to my next point.

*Development all over the world has already reduced the rain forests on the planet to 7%. This is drastically lower than the percentage from 60 years ago. Condos are already going up all over the coast and as mentioned above, the runoff is killing the natural beauty of the island. If things don’t stop, the island could be nonexistent by 2020.

There was a lot more to what our guide said but this is basically what I can remember. Her point was not to upset us or make us feel guilty but rather to awaken us to the possibility that our generation can be the change that we want to see in the world. Since the 1960s, more and more information has been surfacing regarding what we are doing wrong as a species and how we can fix it. The problem is that people simply don’t care. Very few people are worried about the fact that we are running out of room to dump waste or the fact that not only are we living in excess, we are not living in a way that is sustainable. Eventually we will reach the breaking point and what will happen then is that the human race will die out. The planet, well the planet will be just fine because the straight scientific facts prove that we are going to kill ourselves before we finish the job of killing the planet. This is a very real and relevant problem and all of us really need to start thinking about what has to be done because I know that I don’t want my ancestors living on a garbage dump with no clean water. I’m so sick of hearing “well I don’t care because the world isn’t going to end in my lifetime so it’s really not my job to do anything about all of these environmental issues.” It is our job because this planet gave us life. This planet provides us naturally with all the things we need to survive yet we continue to destroy her and reject her offerings. No one NEEDS plastic or candy or twelve pairs of jeans. It’s a sad life we are headed towards. Soon all remnants of how life should be- active, beautiful, peaceful, enjoyable etc…- will disappear. And when that happens, there will be no more civilization, only robots programmed to want and buy and want and buy. I know I don’t want to be here for that and I plan on doing whatever I can to make a difference.

the beginning

i don't think i've ever been this happy in my entire life. we've been on the ship for about a day and a half now and there's already so much that has happened. this is such a beautiful home for us and everyone living aboard is so respectful of the ship. i've met so many people and all of them are different and kind and smart and it's so amazing. the professors have the most innovative attitudes and everything about this trip astounds me. i think i'm already enamoured. me roommate is this really amazing girl from berkley california. her name is beth. her boyfriend tristan is also on the trip and they are both so fun and cool and smart and mature and i already love them so much. katie is great and we've been meeting lots of new people to hang out with and travel with. last night my friend cristal led a sing along on the deck and all these people joined. she's a great guitarist with an even better voice and she reminds me of hanna in a lot of ways. tomorrow is the first day of classes and i can't wait. after that, we'll land in puerto rico and the real adventure finally begins. i'm even starting to learn to love the lull of the ship. it rocks back and forth all day and night day and night and night after day but it's starting to become reassuring. the waves rock me to sleep at night. the internet is extremely slow so i'll try my best to keep this updated and personal emails will hopefully be on the way soon. i love you all so much and wish that you could be here with me to experience all of this. i've truly been given the opportunity of a lifetime.